Laura Carter lives and teaches in Atlanta. Recent chapbooks are out with Dancing Girl Press.

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The day I remember leaving

was almost

as lovely

as a mixed-use

facility

with

no use for

fire—

your face

as quiet

as a tall glass of milk,

pure eon,

aion—

the world I thought

I loved.

By the time you had

left for the other

side of the world,

I could have measured

a tactile forest

between us.

But there was

nothing left

of your cynic’s synergy

for me to pull

back into

as I moved

ahead with a

tenuous frame

around me.

Stereophonic

was once code for poem, as if what the world knows of music could be measured in the interim that the poems provide. I wanted “my” poems to be a singular affair, but I had no proof that this would relieve others of their pain. Once, in a longish sort of dream, a man said that all poems are sugar. I thought of all the poems I know, including the yews and the horses. Sugar? Is there a place for an incorrect poem in the world that might somehow touch what a poem can feel? It’s simple, or so it seems. I guess poems are meant to convey all that is lovely or intense about a person, place, or thing. No verbs allowed. Or are they?

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I always began

the world, likeso, likeso,

learning how to sayso, sayso,

keeping my hands

out of the hellmouth.

*

Yesterday seemed

at least as ornery

for many as when

the first morning

fell away.

No tricks.

No options.

*

The last time I saw

what the first brother

wanted, there

was a mosquelike

place behind him.

The temple where

only a few

would escape

without risking every-

thing.

Laura Carter lives and teaches in Atlanta. Recent chapbooks are out with Dancing Girl Press.